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Guitarist/composer James Blackshaw's 2007 Tompkins Square album, The Cloud of Unknowing, received 'Top 50 Albums of the Year' honors from Pitchfork and Wire Magazine. Fresh off a U.S. and UK tour with Jose Gonzalez, and a bevy of year-end
praise from the blogosphere to The New York Times, Tompkins Square reissues four catalog titles previously only available as tiny, limited edition CDR pressings. James will return to the U.S. this Spring in support of his next studio album, to be released in June of 2008. Mr. Blackshaw plays 12-string acoustic guitar, picking endlessly circling, intertwining arpeggios: stately, tolling ones on the lower strings and faster ones, verging on tremolo, up above. Yet what usually emerges from the welter of notes is not bustle but
tranquillity. The music has the same contemplative scope that turns countless tiny daubs into a Monet water lily. ' Jon Pareles, The New York Times, Dec 31, 2007
Originally released as a CD-R in an edition of 200 copies by Digitalis Industries (Digi08) in 2004.
Through these strange and uncertain times it is sometimes a little hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel but this is where The Moons have stepped in. This long player is an album full of colour and raw songwriting recorded live in the legendary Studio 2 at Abbey Road Studios. With cinematic string arrangements and masterclass songwriting from the pen of singer/songwriter Andy Crofts this album will be your happy escape.
'Most of this album had been unintentionally sat in my pocket for quite some time. Songs that I had written and forgotten about or had just lost their way and left unfinished. So that is why I wanted the album to simply be named Pocket Melodies. I had this inner feeling to pull them all together and it turned out my favourite Moons record.' Andy Crofts
Pocket Melodies takes you on a journey of glorious melodies leading you through love, romance, nostalgia, regret and unity.
'I wanted to be true to myself with this record. My best strength is writing melodic pop songs so I just let it all flow as I wanted this album to be soaked in colour and completely natural. There's no pretence, it's just straight up pop songs. I have always worn my heart on my sleeve when it comes to my feelings and I think you can hear this in the lyrics this time.' Andy Crofts
The album features singles Riding Man and Today which received high praise and championed on BBC London and Radio X and a collaboration with Paul Weller on the song Tunnel Of Time.
"I wrote all of the songs on the album except Tunnel Of Time which is a collaboration between myself and Paul Weller. He once approached me with a little idea and we slowly worked at it in dressing rooms etc until I took it away and put it all together. Its a nice little song and im glad it found a home with The Moons." Andy Crofts